Looking Forward: Comment on Morgante,Zolfaghari, and Johnson

Morgante et al. (in press) find inconsistencies in the time reporting of a Tobii T60XL eye tracker. Their study raises important questions about the use of the Tobii T‐series in particular, and various software and hardware in general, in different infant eye tracking paradigms. It leaves open the question of the source of the inconsistencies. Here, observations from a Tobii eye tracker are presented to elucidate possible sources of timing inconsistencies, including those found by Morgante et al. The ramifications of the reported timing inconsistencies are related to various infant paradigms. The focus is on the level of concern a researcher should have if any eye tracker displays these timing characteristics, and what corrective measures may be taken. While posing no problems for some paradigms, timing inconsistencies are potentially problematic (but correctable) when assessing event‐related looking behavior. Observed timing contraindicates use in fast gaze‐contingent displays (<100 ms). General suggestions are made regarding timing in eye‐tracked data collection.     

The Trajectory of Concurrent Motor and Vocal Behaviors Over the Transition to Crawling in Infancy

To document the trajectory of motor and vocal behaviors in real and developmental time, we observed infants at each of four biweekly naturalistic play sessions over the transition to crawling. An exhaustive and mutually exclusive coding scheme documented all vocalizations and postures. Odds ratios of the likelihood of a given posture‐vocalization dyad revealed that vocalization and crawling were significantly unlikely to co‐occur at the session marking the onset of crawling. We speculate that infants’ allocation of attention over the transition to crawling prompted behavioral trade‐offs. During mastery of a novel skill, infants may have had difficulty allocating attention to multiple tasks, but with experience, a decrease in attentional load for the new skill allowed performance of simultaneous behaviors in other domains to occur.     

Trafficking,Exploitation and Migration on the Thailand‐Burma Border: A Qualitative Study

Migrant workers from Burma 1 often experience exploitation, abuse and violations at various stages of travel to and within Thailand and in workplaces in Thailand. Guided by Zimmerman et al.'s conceptual framework, which identifies the potential risks associated with trafficking process, this article presents findings from in‐depth interviews with 61 migrant workers living and working in and around Mae Sot, Thailand, on the Thailand‐Burma border, to describe the broader context of irregular migration from Burma to Thailand, and trafficking‐related risks in this context. Results demonstrate that use of transporters (“carries”) and brokers in order to travel to Thailand and find employment can enable trafficking. Moreover, migrant workers are exposed to a range of exploitative experiences in workplaces in Thailand, including violence, coercion, and economic exploitation. This article explores dynamics of migration that can enable trafficking in this context, as well as exploitative working conditions consistent with forced labour.     

Reliability,Validity, and Variability of the Subjective Well-Being Questions in the 2010 American Time Use Survey

Part of a wider range of investigations to produce generally acceptable standards for measuring affective well-being, time diary surveys have tested several approaches to measuring subjective well-being during diary days. As an alternative to the standard approach of asking a single question about each activity reported in time diary surveys, the 2010 module of the American Time Use Survey asked six emotion questions about three activities. The perception questions captured how happy, meaningful, sad, tired, stressed, or in pain respondents felt on a 7-point scale. To evaluate this approach, our research examined the reliability and validity of the six emotion questions, and assessed their variability across activities. Using principal component analysis, we assessed the associations among items and obtained two activity-level components with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.68 and 0.59 and two respondent-level components with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.74 and 0.65. To test validity, we regressed self-rated health on the underlying components and socio-demographic controls. Both of the respondent level components were significantly associated with better health (odds ratio 1.81, 1.27). Using each of the perceptions individually, we found that happiness, meaningfulness, and lack of fatigue, stress, and pain were related to better health, but none as strongly as the first component. Finally, we examined the coefficients of variation to assess the variability in the well-being measures across activities. Measurement implications and limitations of this study are discussed.     

Socialization in the Context of Risk and Psychopathology: Maternal Emotion Socialization in Children of Incarcerated Mothers

Children of incarcerated mothers are at increased risk for psychological, social, and emotional maladaptation. This research investigates whether perceived maternal socialization of sadness and anger may moderate these outcomes in a sample of 154 children (53.9 percent boys, 61.7 percent Black, M age = 9.38, range: 6–12), their 118 mothers (64.1 percent Black), and 118 caregivers (74.8 percent female, 61.9 percent grandparents, 63.2 percent Black). Using mother, caregiver, and child report, seven maternal socialization strategies were assessed in their interaction with incarceration‐specific risk experiences predicting children's adjustment. For sadness socialization, the results indicated that among children reporting maternal emotion‐focused responses, incarceration‐specific risk predicted increases in psychological problems, depressive symptoms, increased emotional lability, and poorer emotion regulation. For children who perceived a problem‐focused response, incarceration‐specific risk did not predict outcomes. There were no significant interactions with incarceration‐specific risk and perceived maternal anger socialization strategies. These results indicate a critical need to examine how socialization processes may operate differently for children raised in atypical socializing contexts.     

Environmental quality and fertility: the effects of plant density,species richness,and plant diversity on fertility limitation

The relationship between the environment and population has been of concern for centuries, and climate change is making this an even more pressing area of study. In poor rural areas, declining environmental conditions may elicit changes in family-related behaviors. This paper explores this relationship in rural Nepal looking specifically at how plant density, species richness, and plant diversity are related to women’s fertility limitation behavior. Taking advantage of a unique data set with detailed micro-level environmental measures and individual fertility behavior, I link geographically weighted measures of flora at one point in time to women’s later contraceptive use as a way to examine this complex relationship. I find a significant, positive relationship between plant density, species richness, and plant diversity and the timing of contraceptive use. Women in poor environmental conditions are less likely to terminate childbearing, or do so later, and therefore more likely to have larger families.     

Dimensions of Precariousness in an Emerging Sector of Self‐Employment: A Study of Self‐Employed Nurses

Changing economic ideologies and a new emphasis on entrepreneurial opportunities have led to a rise in self‐employment in Canada, especially among women. Although some people benefit from self‐employment, it is considered to be a precarious form of employment. Despite a growing body of literature on gender and self‐employment, there is more to learn about its precarious nature across industries and types of entrepreneurs. This ethnographic study examines the experiences of self‐employed nurses in order to better understand self‐employment in professional caring work. In some ways, these nurses' experiences fit with what is known about female self‐employment but this specific sector highlights how precariousness can take different forms across different areas of work. In particular, this study reveals new insights about the complexity and ambiguity of precariousness.